Shakespeare didn’t have Romeo and Juliet commit suicide in the first act, and then let the remaining characters pitch tents on the stage and chat aimlessly for the remaining four acts. That was because Shakespeare was a dramatist. His aim was to move people to emotion, to make them think, to shock, horrify, or delight them. Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that he was pretty good at it. Today’s protesters could learn a thing or two from him.
As I mentioned in Part 1, the Occupy protest movement began by taking advantage of new methods (the social media), and then quickly reverted to an old formula. The advantage that social media offered was the ability to bring people together quickly to do some strategic and dramatic thing —- to surprise. The “flash mob” is the appropriate template for a protest using social media. The flash mob originated as an amusement —- one in Toronto called people to a pillow fight in front of the Eaton Centre. There have been some political protests using this technique, and these have been dubbed “smart mobs,” but their use has been very limited, so far. The key to the flash mob’s effectiveness is its ability to end as abruptly as it begins. This leaves those in authority disconcerted, and makes them look incompetent. It has the same advantage in protest that guerilla tactics can have in military conflicts.
The Occupy movement has squandered the opportunity to move into the modern age of protest. Social media were used to bring people together, but once there, power reverted to the traditionalists, and the only thing they could think of doing was squatting down and staying put. The smart mob turned into a “sit in,” a protest relic from a generation ago that is notorious for its ineffectiveness and tendency to alienate the very people that the protest is supposed to convince. There are a number of reasons for this ineffectiveness. It creates a wretchedly pathetic “story arc,” which contradicts the most basic principles of drama. The “sit in” protest is guaranteed to end poorly. Either the protest peters out in an embarrassing way, as protesters are exhausted and disillusioned, or it is ousted, making the authorities look competent and triumphant. In a democratic polity, where the public knows that the protesters are not in any real physical danger, this does not make them look like martyrs, it makes them look like nitwits. Setting yourself up to look pathetic and ineffective is not the way to bring public opinion to your side. It also puts the protesters in a passive position, where they can be easily observed, contained and controlled by the authorities, and have very few options or opportunities to act. To be contained, visible, predictable, and passive is, in almost any conflict, a formula for failure.
Secondly, nothing could be more effective at diverting public attention from the things that the protest is supposed to be about. At the very beginning of the protests, their suddenness and scale triggered discussion of the relevant issues. Mainstream journalists began to write thoughtful pieces about income disparity. This was the avowed purpose of the demonstrators: to make people think about this issue. But after this initial spate, discussion of this issue disappeared. The only thing that has been discussed in the last few weeks is the demonstration itself — when and how it should be eliminated. After all, it must end sometime, unless the protesters manage to spend the rest of their lives in tents and raise generations of children in them. The subjects the protests were intended to bring to public attention are now effectively buried.
Thirdly, the Occupy protests violate the most fundamental purpose of a demonstration, which is to convince the public that your cause is just, that you are the good guys, while those you are opposing are the bad guys. To do this, you have to appear to be making some sort of effort and sacrifice on behalf of your cause, you must appear to be serious in both thought and purpose, and you must appear to embody a moral superiority over your opponents. Those who had those motives attended the Occupy protests in the beginning, but they have long since left, frustrated by the reversion of authority to traditional protest groups, which have no interest in pursuing these goals. A publicly perceived seriousness is of supreme importance in effective protest. If you are to successfully put a cause across to the public, you must convince them that you are not there merely to amuse yourself. Now, I happen to enjoy a good drum circle —- it’s a pleasant entertainment. I like to dance. There’s a bong sitting on my desk, because I enjoy that pastime too. But the protesters aren’t supposed to be there to have a good time, they’re supposed to be there to convince the public to to reform our society. All the public sees is a bunch of people with too much leisure time at their disposal being self-indulgent at the expense of the rest of us. Public places, supposedly for everybody’s use, have been taken over by people who want to party. So how is this any different from football rowdies or frat partyers taking over a park? This is probably the most destructive influence of the old-school protesters. To them, protest is a “way of life,” utterly divorced from any considerations of how to accomplish a concrete goal, or to influence public opinion. Things are done because they are traditions of the tribe, not because they effect change.
If you speak to these old-schoolers, it won’t be long before you hear them prattle nonsense about how they are continuing the traditions of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s. They are deluding themselves. The Civil Rights activists were not amusing themselves. They did not go out on picnics. They were dealing with the Ku Klux Klan, and with corrupt and violent state governments in the American south. They were in constant danger. Civil Rights activists faced the serious possibility of being tortured or killed. Everything done was aimed at projecting an atmosphere of seriousness of purpose, and of clearly delineating the moral issues involved. Anyone who wants to see real protest in action could do no better than to study the events of the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956*. Protests like this led to a gigantic transformation of American society, one of the most dramatic in world history. Take note of the fact that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Abernathy did not organize catfish fry-ups, sponsor watermelon eating festivals, or instruct their followers to dance the madison. They did not paint themselves blue. They rationally, intelligently, and bravely, calculated which actions would produce the desired results, and undertook them, making huge personal sacrifices to do so. The American public came to realize that it was the State Governments and the Klan who were the savages, the forces of chaos.
I have become progressively more annoyed with the Occupy movement because of its utter failure to heed these simple and obvious facts. We desperately need to get the American and Canadian public to understand the trouble we are in, and the dangers we face over the coming years. Intelligent protest is one of the things that has to be done. I’ve outlined some of the reasons why the protest we are seeing is not intelligent or effective. Next, in Part 3, I will discuss the types, dynamics, and structure of protest.
—
*It actually began in December of 1955, but the bulk of it was in 1956.
0 Comments.